I can’t remember why I am in the car. But I know my father is now inhabiting the last sliver of life left to him. And that he has just attended what will be one of his final appointments at the Royal Marsden, where even the country’s most eminent cancer specialists can now do little or nothing to retard the course of the disease rampaging through him.
I think, now I recall the scene, that I’m there because the woman my father loves has demanded it of me. She is not finding it easy shepherding him through the pain and fear of his final weeks, and is understandably eager to share the burden with others who should be expected to care about my father.
In any case, I am there in the back of their ancient Volvo, as she drives up the King’s Road, my father next to her in the front passenger seat. The mood in the car, as I remember, is less doom-laden than might be expected. Perhaps my father is relieved to have come through another session with his consultant (where the only substantive question to be discussed – although, in the event, it was not explicitly touched upon – was the likely date of his death), and is now looking forward to lunch, with which he will drink a glass of champagne. Or, more accurately, instead of which, he will drink a glass of champagne. (As my father’s life teeters towards its end, and his appetites dwindle, his desire for hedonism, rather admirably, grows.)
Whatever the reason, there is a certain lightness between us. My father and I both laugh at something the woman he loves has said.
And then she slows the car, and makes to stop when she can find a space, to let me out. I think we are probably at Paddington, where I will catch a train to take me home to Bristol. I won’t be seeing my father again soon. Or perhaps ever, given how infrequent my visits to London are.
As the car stops, and I prepare to open the door with my left hand, I put my right hand on my father’s shoulder in front of me, in an unaccustomed gesture of farewell. (As an adult, I occasionally shake my father’s hand on meeting, but otherwise, we have no physical connection.) I leave it there for a moment, as I say my goodbyes. As I remove it, readying myself to get out of the car, my father reaches across himself with his left hand, and pats his shoulder, exactly where my hand has been just moments before.
We have come close to making contact, just once, before he dies; but narrowly, so narrowly, we have failed to touch.
*****